S.E. Volusia tourism group selects new executive director

Tuesday

Jul 9, 2013 at 6:05 PMJul 9, 2013 at 9:11 PM

The Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority's month-long search for a new executive director has come to an end.

JEFFREY CASSADYBUSINESS WRITER

NEW SMYRNA BEACH — The Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority's month-long search for a new executive director has come to an end. After interviewing five finalists, the tourism marketing group's board voted unanimously Tuesday to offer the job to Carl Watson, who is currently director of the Cleburne (Texas) Chamber of Commerce Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We're very excited,” Watson told The News-Journal in a telephone interview, referring to both him and his wife on his being offered the position. “It's quite an honor.” Watson is set to begin his new job in early August. He will become the ad authority's third executive director in two years, filling the position that became vacant when Tim Hamby quit in May, after just seven months, to take a job close to his Ponte Vedra Beach home. Hamby succeeded the Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority's previous executive director, Nicole Carni, who was fired in January 2012. Watson on Tuesday verbally accepted an offer from the ad authority that will pay him an annual salary of $70,000, plus about $8,000 in health benefits — equal to what Hamby earned while he was executive director. The ad authority selected Watson over four other finalists: Jack Becker, former director of the MainStreet DeLand Association; Andy Cripps, an Ormond Beach resident who serves as executive director of the Sumter County Chamber of Commerce; Lacey Ekberg, former director of the South Padre Island Convention & Visitors Bureau in South Padre Island, Texas; and Gentry Baumline-Robinson, a New Smyrna Beach resident who works as creative services manager with DME Holdings LLC, a Daytona Beach marketing agency Palmer Wilson, the ad authority's chairman, said he thought the board had a stronger field of candidates from which to choose this year than it did when it was searching for a director last year. “(Watson's) personality will go a long way in working with (tourism) stakeholders,” Wilson said. About 30 people applied for the job. At its monthly meeting in June, the ad authority board whittled that down to five finalists. Watson is no stranger to Volusia County. A graduate of Mainland High School, Watson lived in Daytona Beach from 1959 until 1968, he said after the interview. Additionally, he earned degrees in hotel and restaurant management and real estate marketing from what is now Daytona State College. He also worked as assistant manager for hotels in Daytona Beach and South Daytona in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Since Hamby's departure, West Volusia Tourism Advertising Authority Executive Director Renee Tallevast has been filling in as the Southeast Volusia ad authority's interim executive director, splitting her time between the West Volusia tourism group's DeLand offices and the Southeast Volusia organization's headquarters in New Smyrna Beach. Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority board member Scott Brown did not attend Tuesday's meeting. The ad authority uses bed-tax revenues collected by the county from local hotels and vacation rental properties to market the area as a destination for tourism, business gatherings and special events.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.